tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca/topics/bureaucrats-16169/articlesBureaucrats – The Conversation2017-11-02T02:52:41Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/822032017-11-02T02:52:41Z2017-11-02T02:52:41ZStop doing companies' digital busywork for free<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192300/original/file-20171027-2402-p3er9r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How much time and energy do people spend rating, reviewing and answering surveys?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/reputation-management-concept-feedback-rating-677453737">Ditty_about_summer/Shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the past year, I stopped responding to customer surveys, providing user feedback or, mostly, contributing product reviews. Sometimes I feel obligated – even eager – to provide this information. Who doesn’t like being asked their opinion? But, in researching media technologies as an anthropologist, I see these requests as part of a broader trend making home life bureaucratic. </p>
<p>Consumer technologies – whether user reviews and recommendations, social media or health care portals – involve logistical effort that means more administrative work at home. As economic anthropologist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Graeber">David Graeber</a> <a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit">observes</a>, “All the software designed to save us from administrative responsibilities [has] turned us into part- or full-time administrators.” Companies may benefit when customers create content, provide feedback and do busywork once done by paid employees, but what about the customers themselves – all of us?</p>
<p>Many researchers recognize professional <a href="https://hbr.org/1983/09/moral-mazes-bureaucracy-and-managerial-work">workplaces are becoming more bureaucratic</a>, managing workers through documentation and quantification. But fewer acknowledge the expansion of this logic into private life. It might not feel like a burden to update your Facebook profile, review a business or log in to a web portal to message your doctor. But when you lose time answering customer surveys, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/help/325807937506242/">setting privacy rules</a>, resetting a password, wading through licensing agreements or updating firmware, it becomes clear how digital technologies increase managerial work at home. In my forthcoming book, I explore this phenomenon, which I call logistical labor.</p>
<h2>Digitizing daily life</h2>
<p>Here’s a typical example of how this happens at home. I recently received an email from my auto insurance requesting I call. Fair enough; I might not answer if the company called me. But instead of reaching a person familiar with the query, my call fed into an automated system where a synthesized voice asked what I was calling about.</p>
<p>“You told me to call!” I replied.</p>
<p>The automated system was confused: “Sorry, what was that again? You can say auto ‘policy,’ ‘claims’ or ‘tell me my options.’” </p>
<p>Eventually I reached a human, who didn’t know why I’d been asked to call either. “I don’t know,” I told her, “That’s what I’m calling about…” Finally, we figured out what was going on and resolved the issue. Then she asked whether I would stay on the line for a customer service survey. I refused. </p>
<p>Rather than calling or emailing me with specific details, the company made me work through all that automated confusion. Requiring that I call in effectively gave me work previously done by paid employees. And then the insurance company asked for yet more of my time to reflect on how well – or not – my work solved the problem the company had. At what point should I expect to be paid for my work?</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192523/original/file-20171030-18735-1uc42c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/192523/original/file-20171030-18735-1uc42c6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">Are these call center workers happy because other people are doing their jobs?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/call-center-worker-accompanied-by-his-707850307">Redpixel.pl/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>Managing work</h2>
<p>Bureaucracy – a term coined in the 18th century to mean “<a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/projects/social-worlds/all-articles/management/desk">rule by writing desk</a>” – refers to the organization of modern government, desk-bound and hierarchical. Max Weber, a <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/weber/">founding theorist of social science</a>, viewed bureaucratic organization as fundamental to modern society. He decried its rigidity as an <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/understanding-max-webers-iron-cage-3026373">“iron cage” of rationalization</a> in which social life is managed quantitatively. Since at least the 1970s, bureaucratic management has become common in corporate workplaces. </p>
<p>Sociologist Robert Jackall termed this shift the “<a href="https://hbr.org/1983/09/moral-mazes-bureaucracy-and-managerial-work">bureaucratization of the economy</a>,” in which rigid hierarchy and constant documentation takes over business places, including “administrative hierarchies, standardized work procedures, regularized timetables, uniform policies, and centralized control.” More bureaucracy means relentlessly tracking metrics and performances in the name of productivity – and internalizing the idea that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95235-9_5">a person’s value can be quantified</a>.</p>
<p>Graeber, the anthropologist of bureaucracy, suggests bureaucratization is becoming more common <a href="https://thebaffler.com/salvos/of-flying-cars-and-the-declining-rate-of-profit">as Western economies export manufacturing work to developing countries</a>. The work that remains <a href="https://monthlyreview.org/2010/10/01/the-financialization-of-accumulation/">increasingly depends</a> on the <a href="https://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/new_york_city/entry/fire_finance_insurance_real_estate_ice_intellectual_cultural_educational/">finance, insurance and real estate sectors</a>, businesses that make their money from service fees and employ people to do pointless <a href="http://strikemag.org/bullshit-jobs/">“bullshit” jobs</a>. Graeber contends that – unlike teaching, manual work, health care or the arts – jobs in management, consulting, PR or other “knowledge” fields could vanish with little effect on society.</p>
<p>In the academic world, <a href="https://www.socanth.cam.ac.uk/directory/professor-marilyn-strathern-cbe-fba">anthropologists like Marilyn Strathern</a> have described the push to quantify and document university work as “<a href="https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/4432135">audit culture</a>.” More broadly, this expansion of administrative work, aided by digital technologies, is transforming how American companies operate. For many companies, shifting administrative labor to consumers and “<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-we-ensure-the-next-generation-of-workers-isnt-worse-off-than-the-last-52110">gig-economy</a>” contractors offers a newly “disruptive” business model. As tech companies <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/commentary/354458/whatever-happened-to-customer-support">replace live customer service</a> with online support “topics,” for example, users must spend additional time wading through these articles, or face endless phone trees when they do find a phone number. </p>
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<span class="caption">When is bureaucracy too much?</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/busy-businessman-under-stress-due-excessive-551850775">Elnur/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<h2>Laboring for social media companies</h2>
<p>New technologies can generate more pointless work, and not just in professional settings. The <a href="https://www.epicpeople.org/how-theory-matters/">logic of tracking and monitoring</a>, for example, threatens to take over American home life as well, from fitness and wearable tech to smart homes that assess <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDlQu1ow_0s">when you need toilet paper</a> or milk.</p>
<p>But spending time on new tech platforms doesn’t always seem like work. <a href="http://www.jordankraemer.com/writings/">Young Europeans I have studied</a>, for example, enjoy spending time on social networking sites and describe them warmly. But Facebook, Yelp, Instagram and the rest profit from the posts, photos, reviews and links people create, because they incite the “engagement” that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1109/ICUFN.2016.7536934">drives ad revenue</a>. As with consumer surveys or user feedback, these firms <a href="http://fuchs.uti.at/books/culture-and-economy-in-the-age-of-social-media/">are harnessing user-generated content</a> to convert people’s leisure time into corporate profit. </p>
<p>As new social network sites are created and become popular, each person spends more time keeping profiles up to date, checking on connections’ activities or chasing down forgotten passwords. Managing these accounts isn’t just time-consuming; it can be mentally taxing. Inspired by Chandra Mukerji’s <a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8911.html">research on the logistical power of water in civil engineering projects</a>, I consider this cognitive effort “logistical labor.” Logistical labor is in this sense the work consumers do to manage tech platforms, often as companies outsource content creation and streamline their operations. </p>
<h2>A new digital divide</h2>
<p>The scope of this uncompensated digital busywork – from which companies profit – goes well beyond social media maintenance and taking consumer surveys. Even setting up a home printer requires exploring settings and configurations and troubleshooting, which can be daunting without the right tech know-how. People who are unwilling or unable to do that miss out on some of technology’s benefits.</p>
<p>In my research, for example, one young person in Berlin balked at purchasing a new mobile phone, overwhelmed by the task of sorting through service plans. Another shared wireless internet service with a friend across the street, resigning herself to spotty connections and limited online activity rather than wrestle with choosing, ordering and configuring her own service. Others were concerned about data privacy but were stymied by Facebook’s privacy options.</p>
<p>The scale of these problems is not only about quality of life – but about life itself. </p>
<h2>Handling health care</h2>
<p>Expecting consumers to be deeply involved expert users is especially concerning when it comes to managing health care. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-us-health-economy-is-big-but-is-it-better-80593">dysfunctional U.S. health care system</a> is already a Byzantine system of preauthorizations, insurance codes and impersonal treatment. Digitization alone isn’t to blame, but tech platforms like <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.2196%2Fjmir.7099">online portals</a> increase administrative work for patients.</p>
<p>Patients, for example, often encounter multiple online portals in the process of paying bills or obtaining prescriptions. Although these systems save time in some ways, they require patients do more legwork like setting up user accounts. This problem is made worse as doctors <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/14/us/salaried-doctors-may-not-lead-to-cheaper-health-care.html">leave private practice</a> for hospital groups, which often use unwieldy online platforms and automated phone systems that make it difficult to reach a doctor directly. </p>
<p>Although the health care industry touts such portals <a href="https://www.healthcare-informatics.com/article/business-case-increasing-patient-portal-adoption">as better for business</a> – and in theory, <a href="https://health.usnews.com/health-news/patient-advice/articles/2014/06/30/how-patient-portals-are-changing-health-care">for coordinating care</a> – little attention has been paid to the additional work they create for patients, or the barriers to accessing their doctors.</p>
<h2>Inequality at home</h2>
<p>In all these examples, managing information on computer systems – for health care, insurance coverage or social media interaction – requires a new level of logistical effort, even with access to computers and the internet. This logistical labor adds to the <a href="https://www.psychologistworld.com/memory/cognitive-load-theory">mental work of managing a household</a>.</p>
<p>In most homes, this additional effort, sometimes called “cognitive load,” <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/health/2017-09-14/the-mental-load-and-what-to-do-about-it/8942032">falls disproportionately to women</a>, who keep track of their families’ needs. For working women, the “second shift” isn’t just about housework or child care, but <a href="http://time.com/money/4561314/women-work-home-gender-gap/">the cumulative fatigue of planning, delegating and worrying</a>. It’s not a coincidence that many “smart home” technologies effectively replace the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDlQu1ow_0s">care work of mothers</a>. This invisible labor typically goes unpaid, further devaluing responsibilities traditionally associated with women. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">Do smart technologies tend to focus on gender-biased tasks?</span></figcaption>
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<p>Similarly, the logistical labor of managing new technologies entails a cognitive load that can overtake daily life. Of course, I still follow social media, read consumer reviews and sign up for paperless billing. But I’m more aware of how easily my time and labor become new sources of profit, through an unseen exploitation that places the onus on individuals to manage complex systems in the guise of optimizing user “experience.” This broader trend, however, makes individuals complicit in their own exploitation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/82203/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan Kraemer received funding previously from Intel Labs.</span></em></p>Companies may benefit when customers create content, provide feedback and do busywork once done by paid employees, but what about the customers themselves – all of us?Jordan Kraemer, Visiting Scholar in Anthropology, New York UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/778992017-05-18T00:54:29Z2017-05-18T00:54:29ZComey isn't the first FBI director to keep memos on a president<p>President Donald Trump allegedly asked FBI Director James Comey to drop the FBI’s <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html?hp&amp;action=click&amp;pgtype=Homepage&amp;clickSource=story-heading&amp;module=span-ab-top-region&amp;region=top-news&amp;WT.nav=top-news">investigation into Michael Flynn</a>.</p>
<p>President Franklin Roosevelt <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/FDR%20Aug%201936%20memos.pdf">asked FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover</a> to collect information on Americans who had committed no crimes. </p>
<p>President Richard Nixon <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/25%20Nov%201970%20Nixon%20memo.jpg">asked Hoover</a> to provide the White House a list of reporters the FBI knew were homosexual.</p>
<p>How do we know? FBI director memos.</p>
<p><a href="http://greaterallegheny.psu.edu/person/douglas-m-charles-phd">As an FBI historian</a>, I was not surprised to learn that Comey kept memos. He referred to them in <a href="https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/os-jcomey-060817.pdf">his prepared remarks</a> for Thursday’s Senate Intelligence Committee hearing, and they’ll probably form the basis of his answers to questions about his meetings with Trump. The FBI’s history shows such documentation can be essential to how FBI directors operate, and how they can insulate or protect the FBI’s integrity.</p>
<h2>Intelligence on noncriminal activity</h2>
<p>In the summer of 1936, Roosevelt met the FBI director in the White House to discuss, according to Hoover’s memo, “subversive activities in the United States, particularly Fascism and Communism.” Hoover wrote that FDR was interested in getting from the FBI “a broad picture of the general movement and its activities as may effect the economic and political life of the country as a whole.” Hoover replied that “no governmental organization” collected that kind of information.</p>
<p>Nobody collected that information because of FBI improprieties dating to <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=VnQduXa4JdoC&amp;pg=PA11&amp;lpg=PA11&amp;dq=Theoharis+FBI+reference+guide+la+follette&amp;source=bl&amp;ots=SCfWzq8YhO&amp;sig=ysf7Ua8aUvf9S4SUap5XzMk9HjE&amp;hl=en&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi_3cHn0vfTAhVBTCYKHdDQBlgQ6AEIMTAD#v=onepage&amp;q=Theoharis%20FBI%20reference%20guide%20la%20follette&amp;f=false">World War I and the Red Scare of 1919 to 1920</a>. During that period, the FBI had collected political intelligence on prominent politicians, social justice advocates and others it <a href="http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300142846/fbi">perceived as dangerous</a>. In response, Attorney General Harlan Fiske Stone publicly issued investigative guidelines that banned FBI agents from collecting intelligence related to noncriminal activity.</p>
<p>Notwithstanding these restrictions, FBI Director Hoover <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/FDR%20Aug%201936%20memos.pdf">informed the president</a> that a statute from 1916 allowed the FBI to investigate “any matters referred to it by the Department of State.” Roosevelt, though, was “reluctant” to formally ask the State Department for this request because information was constantly leaked from the department.</p>
<p>Instead, he asked Hoover to return to the White House the following day with Secretary of State Cordell Hull.</p>
<p>The next day, FDR explained to Hull and Hoover that he wanted a “survey” of Communist and Fascist activity in the country. Hull asked if he wanted the State Department to make a written request of the FBI. Roosevelt declined, saying he wanted “the matter to be handled quite confidentially.”</p>
<p>The president promised Hoover he would write his own memo about his request and place it in his White House safe, but such a document has never been located in FDR’s presidential papers. <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/FDR%20Aug%201936%20memos.pdf">Hoover’s memo</a> about the meeting remains our only historical source about it. The presidential directive to the FBI then remained a verbal one, albeit secretly documented by Hoover, with no White House-generated paper trail.</p>
<p>The meeting and memo were significant because they marked a shift for the FBI. Because of the president’s request and Hoover’s own interests, the FBI began <a href="https://templepress.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/how-security-interests-can-have-adverse-consequences-for-society/">prioritizing noncriminal intelligence investigations</a> over criminal ones. This is the point where the FBI became, primarily, an intelligence agency. Hoover would thereafter collect massive amounts of noncriminal-related intelligence on Americans both prominent and common. </p>
<h2>Homosexual reporters</h2>
<p>A second example of the FBI director generating a memo about a sensitive presidential request dates to Nixon in 1970, during Hoover’s final years as FBI director. At that time, Nixon was obsessed with the constant stream of leaks from his administration and in discrediting the leakers.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169799/original/file-20170517-24333-xaycb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/169799/original/file-20170517-24333-xaycb9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
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<span class="caption">J. Edgar Hoover memo from 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://vault.fbi.gov/clyde-a.-tolson">FBI</a></span>
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<p>Nixon had his Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman call Hoover to request “a run down on the homosexuals known and suspected in the Washington press corps.” Haldeman said the president thought the request would be easy because he assumed Hoover “would have it pretty much at hand.”</p>
<p>Hoover said he “thought we have some of that material.” To that, the chief of staff offered a couple of names of suspected gay journalists and added the president “has an interest in what, if anything else, we know.” Hoover told him the FBI “would get after that right away.” </p>
<p>In 1970, Hoover had passed what was then the mandatory retirement age of 70. He remained FBI director only because President Lyndon Johnson had issued an <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/IMG_0249.jpg">executive order</a> exempting Hoover. Nixon could revoke that order at any time. With his job vulnerable, Hoover willingly complied with Nixon’s request. Hoover’s FBI also actively <a href="http://www.personal.psu.edu/dmc166/sexdeviatesmemo.pdf">collected and disseminated</a> information <a href="https://kansaspress.ku.edu/978-0-7006-2119-4.html">about gays</a>, and Nixon knew this.</p>
<p>Handwritten notes on Hoover’s memo – the only record of the request, sent to Hoover’s top FBI officials – indicate that the FBI compiled the requested information and sent it to the White House in letter format, dated Nov. 27, 1970. To date, this letter has not surfaced either at the FBI or among the Nixon papers. Because we don’t have the letter, we also do not know the exact content of the information Hoover shared, or whether and how Nixon might have used it against reporters.</p>
<p>Hoover was an astute bureaucrat who had a history of dealing with sensitive or controversial presidential requests. He fully realized, like Comey, the value of documenting his interactions with presidents. Hoover knew that if need be, he could produce the memo as proof he was ordered to do something that, if undocumented, might jeopardize his position as FBI director or lead him to legal trouble. In other words, the memo was a get-out-of-jail-free card.</p>
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<p>It seems a similar situation may be unfolding with Comey. President Trump implied or boasted he might have tapes to use against Comey. But Comey actually documented his interactions with the president. The Comey memos and the FBI’s history shows how a careful bureaucrat in charge of a powerful agency can not only deftly protect himself, but the integrity of a democratic institution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/77899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas M. Charles does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Past presidents have made strange requests of the FBI, some of which were documented by J. Edgar Hoover.Douglas M. Charles, Associate Professor of History, Pennsylvania State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/716102017-02-10T04:15:23Z2017-02-10T04:15:23ZWhy Trump needs the civil servants he wants to fire: Lessons from abroad<p>Like most Republicans, President Donald Trump has made it clear he intends to “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/02/opinion/donald-trump-bureaucracy-apprentice.html?_r=0">fix</a>” the federal government by “draining the swamp.” Traditionally, the GOP has aimed to <a href="http://www.rollcall.com/news/policy/gop-readies-cuts-federal-workforce-trump">cut the size</a> of the federal government. The president’s freeze on <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/trump-issues-executive-orders-freezing-federal-hiring-targeting-trade-n710886">hiring federal employees</a> is a first step in that direction. And he might go a step more.</p>
<p>The administration is showing signs that it views the bureaucracy as primarily implementers, not creators, of policy.</p>
<p>Evidence of this shift in approach can be seen in White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s response to a <a href="https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/01/31/state-department-dissent-letter-draws-signatures/bAoEtqeqEwyfUQoC2uzDgL/story.html">letter of dissent</a> signed by nearly 1,000 State Department employees against Trump’s travel ban to the U.S. from seven Muslim majority countries. He <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2017/01/30/spicer-diplomats-opposed-to-immigration-ban-should-either-get-with-the-program-or-they-can-go/?utm_term=.9915a87def0b">said</a> they should “either get with the program or they can go.”</p>
<p>Trump abruptly ended Sally Yates’ term as attorney general for <a href="http://www.cnbc.com/2017/01/30/acting-us-attorney-general-tells-doj-lawyers-not-to-defend-trumps-travel-ban.html">refusing</a> to defend the order.</p>
<p>This demand for obedience is most often seen in competitive authoritarian regimes, which I <a href="https://adnankrasool.files.wordpress.com/2017/02/rasoolfairbanks-working-paper-version-2.pdf">study</a>. Such regimes often look like democracies, but don’t actually function like them. Think Turkey and Malaysia, for example.</p>
<p>Such a confrontation between leaders and civil servants leaves the system gridlocked and in chaos. It’s worth understanding the vital role bureaucracies play in the smooth functioning of a government by looking at examples from other countries.</p>
<h2>Lessons from Japan and Turkey</h2>
<p>After the second World War, Japan made efforts to rebuild its economy and revamp its pre-war institutions. Leaders sought to better serve a new democratic country with significantly limited global influence. Civil service reform was a crucial part of this rebuilding process. As a result of these reforms, starting in the 1960s, Japan was effectively <a href="http://www.tokyofoundation.org/en/articles/2008/the-bureaucratic-role-and-party-governance-symposium-report-3">governed</a> by a bureaucracy, while the Liberal Democratic Party ruled.</p>
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<span class="caption">Japanese Prime Minister Eisaku Sato’s third Cabinet is inaugurated in Tokyo on Jan. 14, 1970.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/T. Sakakibara/H. Huet</span></span>
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<p>Prime Minister Eisaku Sato, who was in power most of the ‘60’s and early '70’s, empowered bureaucrats at government departments. For example, under his leadership, the responsibilities of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry were expanded to include building an export-oriented economy that created jobs. This work built the foundations for the modern Japanese economy. </p>
<p>Politicians were able to take credit for economic programs that worked, and distance themselves from those that were unpopular, but necessary. The LDP <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/how-did-ldp-hold-so-long-79091">deflected criticism</a> of unpopular budget cuts, and the restructuring of basic public services implemented by the Ministry of International Trade and Industry. </p>
<p>This division of responsibility allowed nonelected officials to conduct the day-to-day tasks of governing and delivering public services. Meanwhile, party leaders focused on the big-ticket populist items, such as resisting China’s acceptance into the U.N., and committing to a nonnuclear Japan. This allowed the regime to focus on promises that helped win reelection. Civil servants had the autonomy to run their departments in the most efficient way without political blow-back. </p>
<p>The case of Turkey is more complex. It also went through a similar period during the 1980s in which its government – both in authoritarian and democratic forms – relied on the bureaucracy to lead industrialization and development <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2000/09/turk-s27.html">efforts</a>.</p>
<p>In the late '70’s, Turkey was on the verge of civil war triggered by economic collapse. Democratic government led by Suleyman Demeril unsuccessfully tried to launch a last ditch series of economic reforms which left Turkey unable to buy even the <a href="http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/651731468761064368/pdf/multi0page.pdf">basic commodities</a>. At risk of complete economic breakdown, General Kenan Evren seized power and put in place an authoritarian regime to rule Turkey in 1980.</p>
<p>The new regime pushed a series of <a href="http://www.merip.org/mer/mer122/turkeys-economy-under-generals?ip_login_no_cache=f28c0c3d54a20b0853ae553827d0540c">sweeping changes</a>, including banning unions, controlling wages, banning political parties and removing agricultural subsidies. The push for industrialization was the cornerstone of this strategy. What the regime failed to do was effectively implement the strategy and trust state institutions to do their work. The policies had little input from the bureaucrats who expected to implement them. As a result, real wages were depressed and farming communities suffered losses without subsidies. </p>
<p>In state-sanctioned elections of 1983, Turgat Ozal was elected as prime minister against President Evren’s preferred candidates. Ozal was able to roll back the harsh economic policies and actively push for industrialization. He was able to bring back the professionalization of the bureaucracy by giving them a larger role in policy creation and implementation. Buoyed by the new mediator, newly independent government institutions <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1010748">pushed austerity measures</a> that cut government spending and incentivized foreign investment. Heavy government subsidies for large industries in new economic opportunity zones stabilized and spurred growth in Turkey’s economy.</p>
<p>Meanwhile President Evren, who had <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/02b4a6e4-f6ef-11e4-a9c0-00144feab7de">advocated against</a> this approach to governance approach between 1980 and 1983, seemed to be ready to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/03058298900190020601">take credit</a> for it by the time 1987 rolled around.</p>
<p>The common pattern observed in the cases of Turkey and Japan is the government’s reliance on an independent civil service, especially in times of political turmoil. </p>
<h2>Ruling and governing: Marriage of convenience?</h2>
<p>The new administration in the U.S. is challenging the autonomy of the civil service by limiting its role in policy creation and implementation. Trump’s election mandate, with significant support from Congress, is to “change things up” in Washington and push for stable economic growth. To achieve this, the administration will need to find a way to work with the civil service and allow it to do its job, not impede it. </p>
<p>Like in Turkey and Japan, the bureaucracy evolves in times of political change. Especially in times of severe political partisanship, reliance on bureaucracy to deliver on campaign promises increases. Trump’s administration needs the technical policy making expertise of bureaucrats to deliver on those promises.</p>
<p>But what is becoming increasingly clear with the <a href="https://theintercept.com/2017/02/01/homeland-security-inspector-general-opens-investigation-of-muslim-ban-rollout-orders-document-preservation/">inefficient rollout</a> of Trump’s travel ban is that his administration may lack willingness to work with relevant bureaucrats to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/05/us/politics/trump-white-house-aides-strategy.html?_r=0">implement its vision</a>. </p>
<p>If the administration continues down this path, we may witness more botched implementation of orders like the travel ban. The quicker the administration reformulates its strategy to work with civil servants, the faster we can expect meaningful policies and their implementation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71610/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adnan Rasool does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Trump administration may do well to make a friend of the federal bureaucracy it's so intent on gutting, according to an expert who studies the role of civil servants in government.Adnan Rasool, Ph.D. Candidate, Georgia State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/717722017-01-27T02:03:23Z2017-01-27T02:03:23ZTrump takes on federal workforce of 2.8 million that's showing signs of stress<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/154464/original/image-20170126-30401-w1p0wb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President Donald Trump signs an executive order implementing a federal government hiring freeze.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Evan Vucci</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On Jan. 20, President Trump became the head of a sprawling federal bureaucracy. His first major actions as manager were to freeze federal <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/federal-hiring-freeze.html">hiring</a>, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/25/politics/trump-epa-lockdowns/">curb</a> the public statements of federal scientists and reportedly <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/26/politics/top-state-department-officials-asked-to-leave-by-trump-administration/index.html">ask</a> the senior management team at the State Department to leave.</p>
<p>These actions are unsettling to a troubled federal workforce whose work will ultimately determine the success of his presidency. </p>
<p>The United States government has a US$4 trillion budget and employs 2.8 million civilian employees and 1.4 million uniformed military <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/Sourcebook12.pdf">personnel</a>. Indeed, Trump has taken on a management challenge orders of magnitude larger than anything he has ever experienced. </p>
<p>To put it in perspective, the largest company in the world, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/07/20/revealed-the-biggest-companies-in-the-world-in-2016/">Wal-Mart</a>, has annual revenue of US$482 billion, about 1/12 the size of the federal government. </p>
<p>The president is not taking over one but more than 200 organizations, each with unique opportunities and complex challenges. The enormous budget and millions of federal workers are divided into 200 to 300 distinct agencies, depending upon how you <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/Sourcebook12.pdf">count</a>. Each agency has its own structure, statutory authority and legal obligations. They also have their own cultures and histories.</p>
<p>There is a lot riding on the president’s management choices. </p>
<p>First, if federal agencies fail, it reflects back as a failure of the president. The poor response by FEMA officials during <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/the-report/articles/2015/08/28/hurricane-katrina-was-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-george-w-bush">Katrina</a> will always be a legacy of the Bush presidency, just as the <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amid-va-scandal-outcry-obama-stresses-sacred-obligation-to-veterans/">veterans</a> health care scandal is part of Obama’s legacy. </p>
<p>Second, federal workers regulate markets, provide national defense, land planes, deliver mail, protect civil rights and maintain highways and national parks. If the president is inattentive to the complexity of this challenge, or fails to understand major federal workforce issues, the consequences could be dramatic.</p>
<h2>A troubled federal workforce</h2>
<p>Any new executive assuming control will want to identify parts of their organization that are performing at a high level and, perhaps more importantly, parts that are not. The president’s ultimate success will depend upon the performance of the federal workforce that implements national policy. If government workers fail, the president fails.</p>
<p>During Obama’s second term, my colleague Mark Richardson and I <a href="http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csdi/research/sfgs.php">surveyed</a> 3,500 federal managers to find out where those pitfalls might be. We asked long-time managers whether federal agencies were up to the job of fulfilling the core missions given them by Congress and the president. The study revealed that the federal personnel system is under significant stress.</p>
<p>A significant percentage of managers reported difficulty recruiting and retaining the best employees. They worry that merit is not sufficiently considered in decisions about promotion or dismissals. Factors like political connections or fear of red tape and lawsuits have too much influence over personnel actions, they said. Ultimately, federal managers worry about whether federal agencies have the human capital necessary to fulfill their core missions. </p>
<p>One unique feature of the <a href="http://media.wix.com/ugd/dfd831_af47bccf9ae24f0ea3766eb1ec7b4fa2.pdf">survey</a> was that we asked federal managers to also share their opinions of other agencies, primarily those with which they work day-to-day. </p>
<p>How skilled were the workforces of other agencies? We aggregated their responses into the chart at the end of this piece to get a nice picture of the management challenges facing the new president.</p>
<p>The workforces of agencies such as the Federal Reserve and the National Institutes of Health are perceived as quite skilled. Those of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Transportation Security Administration less so. Of course, the skills required for some jobs are different from others, but this is what the president confronts on his first weeks in office. One of the primary jobs of a manager is securing the human capital necessary to accomplish the mission of the organization.</p>
<h2>Resistance and turnover</h2>
<p>Federal employees are used to working through changes in administrations between Republicans and Democrats, and pride themselves on their ability to work for either professionally. However, dramatic – and in the view of some, ill-advised – changes in policy can generate resistance or departures. Any president who wants to <a href="https://www.propublica.org/article/trumps-team-at-epa-vetting-controversial-public-meetings-and-presentations">dramatically alter</a> the mission of an agency will encounter all-too-human resistance from federal workers who do not share the president’s views.</p>
<p>This resistance can take the form of ignoring or delaying administration proposals. Career officials may write extensive memos about how the new policy contravenes important law or policy and suggest further study. Agencies complain discreetly to sympathetic members of Congress or the press. During his campaign, Trump was <a href="http://www.politico.com/story/2016/09/immigration-customs-enforcement-union-endorses-trump-228664">endorsed</a> by two unions in the Department of Homeland Security, but these were an exception among government unions. Most recently, several federal unions have <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2017/01/23/trump-freezes-federal-hiring/?utm_term=.023c701c2be1">spoken out</a> against Trump’s hiring freeze.</p>
<p>At some point, the change in administration may be significant enough that many long-serving career professionals will leave altogether. </p>
<p>In a recent <a href="http://www.nber.org/papers/w22932">paper</a> written with Alex Bolton from Emory University and John de Figueiredo from Duke University, my colleagues and I analyzed data on the careers of federal employees from 1988 to 2011. The data revealed that departures among federal workers increase after a party change in the White House, particularly at the higher levels and in agencies whose views about policy differ substantially from the new president. Historically, for example, there are higher rates of departure in an agency like the Environmental Protection Agency under Republican presidents than Democratic presidents. </p>
<p>People go to work for agencies at least partly because they support the mission of the agency. This means Democrats are more likely to want to work in agencies related to social welfare or regulatory agencies, and Republicans in others such as law enforcement and <a href="http://wagner.nyu.edu/impact/research/separated-powers-united-states-ideology-agencies-presidents-and-congress">defense</a>. </p>
<p>For Trump, turnover is likely to be greatest in agencies like the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/12/13/energy-dept-rejects-trumps-request-to-name-climate-change-workers-who-remain-worried/?utm_term=.0549b90338b0">Department of Energy</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/us/politics/state-department-gender-equality-trump-transition.html?_r=0">State Department</a>, where his actions suggest he has positions at odds with the historic activities and positions of those agencies. The departure of employees with the most expertise and experience can be a real challenge, particularly in areas like emergency response or veteran health.</p>
<p>For Trump, a hiring freeze is one way to make a mark. But to successfully manage the government, he will have to acknowledge the reticence of many to respond to his leadership.</p>
<hr>
<iframe src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/5Iw7W/4/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" webkitallowfullscreen="webkitallowfullscreen" mozallowfullscreen="mozallowfullscreen" oallowfullscreen="oallowfullscreen" msallowfullscreen="msallowfullscreen" width="100%" height="3896"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/71772/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David E Lewis previously received funding from the National Science Foundation and Smith Richardson Foundation. </span></em></p>The president manages more than 200 organizations that make up the federal government. A survey of 3,500 federal managers shows they struggle with recruiting and retaining skilled workers.David E. Lewis, William R Kenan, Jr Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science; Co-director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions., Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/401262015-04-17T12:17:38Z2015-04-17T12:17:38ZDavid’s futile fight against the goliath of bureaucracy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/78240/original/image-20150416-5663-1h5hjz9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;rect=273%2C26%2C972%2C584&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=496&amp;fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Faceless, but essential?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/boscdanjou/15871981605/in/photolist-qby4ag-88XxLU-6T2nEa-CuX2p-5kHjwb-5fVSyR-3Zx5Tq-8CgiUs-mRmDr-5uoE3M-6Mqjb7-qKGLGC-NHYjx-5eCncQ-ig7c5m-KFjAp-cXryQs-bt6pCk-bt6puc-bt6pjT-5b3SFi-qZg8v7-7Tj5DK-rd259R-rSfmQj-ouFabr-4wMqGv-9wu8iR-aBCcHC-bt6pc4-bt6p3c-bt6oUX-bt6oKZ-bt6oBz-bt6okx-bt6otD-8zrSm-argLEt-9oQgoE-4Mz56q-4D2Lg9-5RtJ5e-3cwCA-4Q58A-bET6Ju-7QCg54-5i8fSL-4gENe3-9iqcoF-dCk2b4">Bosc d&#39;Anjou</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Five years ago a fresh-faced leader of the opposition stood on the stage at a TED conference in London speaking to a gathering of technologists and entrepreneurs. His promise was to deliver the <a href="http://www.ted.com/talks/david_cameron">next age of government</a>. David Cameron’s talk did not feature the words “austerity”, “immigration”, or “long-term economic plan”, but instead an optimistic vision of family, community, and smarter digital governance built on a technological revolution. Three months later Cameron was prime minister.</p>
<p>The speech was a key part of the Conservative party’s 2010 pre-election strategy to define a <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/may/25/david-cameron-a-new-politics3">new form of politics</a> for a post-bureaucratic age. This was a <a href="https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=post-bureaucratic+organization&amp;year_start=1950&amp;year_end=2008&amp;corpus=15&amp;smoothing=3&amp;share=&amp;direct_url=t1%3B%2Cpost%20-%20bureaucratic%20organization%3B%2Cc0">fashionable management concept</a> in US business schools in the 1990s during an aggressive period of merger and acquisition activity and a de-layering of private sector middle management. But the two decades of academic research which followed gave underwhelming conclusions that bureaucracy and direct managerial supervision had not, in fact, disappeared in firms or public sector agencies beyond anything other than <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/1467-8551.00222/full">bureaucracy-lite</a>.</p>
<h2>Post-bureaucracy?</h2>
<p>Since at least the 1960s, bureaucracy has been an infamous idea in business and politics. In the political narrative, it has become an economic disease. The pathogen is the faceless “bureaucrat”; the pen pusher, jobsworth and pedant. A bean counter either drafting petty rules and regulations in a desperate attempt to hold power, or idling in committee meetings eating biscuits and drinking tea. </p>
<p>But in a service economy, where few people work in agriculture or heavy industry, discerning the difference between diseased-ridden bureaucracy and healthy bureaucracy is a significant challenge. The vast majority of the British public work within bureaucratic organisations.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/3ELnyoso6vI?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Cameron’s TED talk from 2010.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his 2010 TED talk, Cameron suggested we were now able to live in that post-bureaucratic age thanks to an information revolution which had wrestled power away from central government and placed it in the hands of local people. But as soon as he became prime minister his message hardened into something more aggressive. In the 2011 <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2011/mar/06/david-cameron-civil-service-enemies">Conservative spring forum</a>, the first post-election opportunity to set out a concrete political philosophy, Cameron announced:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We are going to be taking on the enemies of enterprise, the bureaucrats in government departments who concoct those ridiculous rules and regulations that make life impossible.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Adversarial politics</h2>
<p>The “enemies of enterprise” speech, which some described as an <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/13/david-mitchell-david-cameron-bureaucrats">evidence-averse Thatcherite ideological crusade</a>, has been the consistent message. The optimistic idea of the post-bureaucratic age has disappeared completely and the ambiguous bureaucratic enemy has resurfaced. In the recent leader debates on April 2, Cameron gave a vigorous response to probing about a wasteful top-down reorganisation of the NHS:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Let me tell Ed Miliband what we did. We took 20,000 bureaucrats out of the NHS and put 9,000 doctors and 7,000 nurses in. Now he opposes those reforms, presumably he would like to rehire the bureaucrats, I want doctors with stethoscopes not bureaucrats with clipboards.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ttaXxjIdrQA?wmode=transparent&amp;start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">NHS tackled during the April 2 Leaders Debate.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/fact-check-are-there-more-nhs-doctors-and-nurses-than-before-the-coalition-39607">NHS Workforce statistics</a> do suggest that the abolishing of primary care trusts and related restructuring after 2010 led to a reduction of staff classified as “managers” or “senior managers” by around 20,000 across NHS England by 2014. However, this amounted to less than 2% of the NHS workforce.</p>
<p>The NHS is an extremely complex professional bureaucracy attempting to deliver some of the most challenging services in society. By some estimates the NHS is the seventh <a href="http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailychart/2011/09/employment?fsrc=scn/tw/te/dc/defending">largest employer in the world</a>, with a workforce of 1.3m structured around a division of labour of 350 different occupational roles. Less than 3% of the workforce is classified as managers.</p>
<h2>Little fat to trim</h2>
<p>Attempts to remove non-professional (non-clinical) employees, including managers, administrators and support staff, is <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/healthcare-network/2015/apr/09/nhs-managers-are-more-than-just-bureaucrats-with-clipboards">not very easy, or necessarily desirable</a> in professional bureaucracies like the NHS. More careful examination of recent <a href="http://www.hscic.gov.uk/workforce">NHS workforce data</a> suggests that the Conservative reforms attempted to remove non-clinical “bureaucrats” from other areas, such as clerical and administrators work, but after cuts were made in 2010 these had already sprung back by 2014. The pattern is very similar for other management roles, such as nurse managers. Research suggests that an increasing level of administration is being pushed on <a href="http://www.netscc.ac.uk/hsdr/files/project/SDO_FR_08-1808-246_V01.pdf">practitioner-managers</a>, largely nurses and doctors, who have strain from higher roles and less time for clinical care.</p>
<p>Moreover, the number of non-clinical managers is also creeping back up, with a full-time equivalent measure of management and senior management growing at a faster rate between 2013-14 than either doctors or nurses. As I write, there are more “manager” jobs available on <a href="http://www.jobs.nhs.uk">the NHS Jobs website</a> (based on a simple keyword search) than “doctor” clinical roles, suggesting that management bureaucrats will continue to rise. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77926/original/image-20150414-24648-f0dw95.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=1000&amp;fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/77926/original/image-20150414-24648-f0dw95.gif?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&amp;q=45&amp;auto=format&amp;w=754&amp;fit=clip"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Administrative staff numbers in NHS, 2009-2014. Are we layering or de-layering?</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Wrestling with the NHS</h2>
<p>With the NHS being considered by the public to be the <a href="https://www.ipsos-mori.com/researchpublications/researcharchive/3508/NHS-leads-economy-and-immigration-as-top-votedeciding-issue.aspx#gallery%5Bm%5D/1/">most important issue facing Britain</a> going into the 2015 election campaign it is important that voters question the rhetoric about the management of public services. Both Labour and Conservative governments have attempted to reorganise vital public services, through mechanisms such as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/5524693/NHS-chief-tells-trusts-to-make-20bn-savings.html">restructuring pay scales</a> or experimenting with <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-privately-run-nhs-hospital-fails-the-marvellous-medicine-wasnt-so-great-after-all-36077">privately-run units</a>. The only proven remedy for meeting growing service pressures, as pointed out by Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg at the recent leader debate, is “hard cash”. Recently, the Conservatives have finally stopped talking about attacking the bureaucrats and have promised an extra £8 billion for the NHS by 2020. But in order to do this, and carry out their long-term economic plan of austerity, the attack on bureaucrats will need to move to other parts of the public sector.</p>
<p>There is little convincing evidence that we are moving to a post-bureaucratic age. The knowledge, rules, processes and relationships embedded within bureaucracies enable firms and public agencies to deliver reliable and consistent services; and this often leads to <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14719037.2014.895028#abstract">unavoidable inertia</a> in organisational structures. Still, most people would prefer a health service that privileges safety and reliability over enterprise and profit. The memory of <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/supportservices/10070425/Timeline-how-G4Ss-bungled-Olympics-security-contract-unfolded.html">G4S’ attempts to manage security during the London Olympics</a> will be fresh in people’s minds. And when Ian Duncan Smith announced the plan for “pension freedom day” recently he was quick to reassure the public that a substantial bureaucracy of pension advisers would be there to offer support to the public.</p>
<p>Cameron’s attack on the bureaucratic disease has a strange irony during an election campaign which is centred more on the “visible hand” of cautious economic management than an “invisible hand” of exuberant market forces. The political ideology of the right might not like the idea of faceless bureaucrats, but like them or not, the bureaucrats are here to stay.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40126/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Gatenby in the past has received funding from National Institute for Health Research SDO programme.</span></em></p>The backroom staff of our biggest bureaucracies are an easy political target, but making good on promises for cuts is harder than it looks.Mark Gatenby, Lecturer in Organisation Studies, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.